Chinese Bullet Train Suffering From Theft & Vandalism

A Japanese language report from Record China reveals that a mere month after China launched its version of the Japanese shinkansen with much fanfare, an inspection has revealed quite a bit of theft and vandalism in the train cars. The damage is particularly bad in the trains’ bathrooms, which seem to be missing some of their fixtures. Paper holders, faucet sensors, and temperature control knobs have been carried off by passengers.

In a related story, Xinhua has reported that that several CRH-5 bullet trains, which recently began running in Northeast China, have been suffering breakdowns and equipment failures. Experts have attributed the failures to driver errors and the relatively short trial runs of the trains.

4 comments - What do you think?
Posted by
James -
May 21, 2007 at 4:57 pm

Not that surprising. Judging by the price list of the fixtures in a hotel in China I stayed at, either the hotel has a flourishing side business in interior decoration, or the list is there as Chinese tend to make off with anything that isn’t nailed down. I know people all over the world tend to nick towels, and some hotels will have a price listed for that in the hotel guide thing or elsewhere, but when even TV and even the curtains are price-listed, you really gotta wonder…. So perhaps the CRH should stick prices on their stuff?

bb

Hilarious. How ghetto can you be?

Ken

Anything goes!

ptr

you can take them out of the village, but you can’t take the village out of them!